


a reminder

by telluric_cry (perihadion)



Series: (and live by love though the stars walk backwards) [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Light Angst, Memories, Missing Scene, Post-Game: Final Fantasy VII (1997), Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24510784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/telluric_cry
Summary: Cloud and Aerith meet in the liminal space between the end of the original game and the beginning of the remake.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife
Series: (and live by love though the stars walk backwards) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752601
Comments: 12
Kudos: 80
Collections: Umbrella & Nailbat | Member Stories





	a reminder

Cloud had the strangest sensation as if he were neither awake nor asleep. He was standing in complete darkness — what had he been doing? He couldn’t remember. Was he in his room or somewhere else? The darkness had an unusual quality to it, as if it were something more than just the absence of light. As he wondered what to do, a light dusting of stars was scattered up into what was now the sky — a strange, twisting trail of light unlike any actual stars he had ever seen before.

The stars cast a cold light onto the space and he could see that the hand which had thrown them up into the sky belonged to someone he ached to see. She turned to face him, seeming to glow from within at the sight of him. Aerith.

“Heya,” she said, with a smile as he approached her.

He looked all around him and then back to her. “What is this place?” he asked.

She shrugged and looked up into the sky, clasping her hands behind her back. “The end,” she said. “Or the beginning. Depends how you look at it.” She smiled at him, but it was a strange smile tinged around the edges with something like — sadness? Or —?

“What do you mean?” he said.

She took a deep breath and turned to look up at the stars, “Something is happening,” she said. “I’m not sure why. But I can feel that we’re going to start our journey again. But —“ she broke off, looking at the ground. As he watched first one, then another, then dozens of vibrant glowing flowers trailed up from the — earth? — and bloomed at her feet.

“But?” he said.

She took a deep breath. “We won’t remember.”

“Remember?”

She nodded. “We won’t know that we have done it before. For some reason we will be back at the start, but we’ll have forgotten everything.”

Cloud looked up at the sky, where the stars glimmered in that strange otherworldly blackness. “Then,” he said, “…why tell me?”

“I think,” she said, after a moment, “I just wanted to see you again, before I forget everything.”

To see him. He closed his eyes. That was right. He had just wanted to see her too. It was something that was with him all the time, that had been with him all the time, ever since she left. Whenever she had run ahead before he had been able to reach her, every time — except that once.

“I just wanted,” Aerith continued, quietly, “to be in this moment with you for a little while. Even if I forget it.”

Cloud clenched his fists, and then nodded to himself. He opened his eyes to look at her. She was luminous, earthly and otherworldly all at once. “I’m going to remember,” he said.

She closed her eyes. “Cloud...” she said, “You can't change it.”

“Even so,” he said, “I am going to try.”

Aerith shook her head. “It will hurt more this time if you think like that.” She clasped her hands in front of herself. It was a familiar gesture of supplication. He put his hands over hers, and she opened her eyes in surprise. He held her gaze.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” Cloud said, surprised at how candid he was able to be. Aerith’s eyes held his gaze; she had an expression on his face he found hard to read.

“Even if I can’t change it,” he said, “even if I forget — it doesn’t matter. Maybe I can’t change the past. But even so, I’m glad.”

“Glad?” she said. He nodded, feeling as though he was unlocking something deep inside himself.

“Those days, at the start,” he said. “They were hard, maybe the hardest days in my life. I was so confused and so weak. But at the same time you were with me.” He felt her hands trembling beneath his. “And so, really … I think those were also the best days of my life. When I think about it there is only one thing I would change. And even if I can’t, if it hurts, or I don’t remember — I’m still glad.”

“Oh,” she said, as he let his hands fall to his sides. He looked over her again at the sky. He remembered another conversation under another shimmering, star-filled sky which had remained tucked away in his heart when he had forgotten so much else.

“Memories...” he said, thinking of all the moments that had fallen through his mind and been lost forever. “I don’t mind losing them. I don’t even mind forgetting you. Because I learned that they change, and shift, and you can’t hold onto them. I understand that now.” He met her gaze again. “But to be able to see you again, even if I don’t know you, is something real. Like you said. To be in a moment with you.”

She nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“Will you try too?” he asked.

“Try?”

“To remember.”

Aerith turned away from him. “Even if I did ... I would still make the same choice.” She shook her head a little. “It wouldn’t change things. I knew even then that there was a chance something could happen to me. I did what I had to, to —” she paused.

“To protect me,” Cloud said. She looked at him, and then nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “So ... it wouldn’t change anything. If you ask me to I will try, but —”

“But?”

She smiled ruefully. “It would hurt to be the only one to remember.”

Oh.

They stood there for a few minutes in a silence so complete Cloud could hear the stars. Aerith looked down at all the shining, luminescent flowers at her feet.

“How about...” she began, raising her eyes to his again, “the flower I gave you?”

“Huh?”

Aerith leant over to gently pick one of the flowers from the ground. “Even if I forget everything else,” she said, “I’ll try to remember this.” She looked at the flower and then she tucked the stem into Cloud’s suspender and placed her hand on his chest. “This time, I’ll give you a yellow lily. It means reunion. And even if we can’t remember maybe part of us will know ...”

Cloud looked down at the flower, and her hand over his heart next to it. “That we’ve been reunited.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And maybe for a moment, even though we’ve forgotten, and we can’t change what’s going to happen next, for a moment we can feel ... some of that gladness ... that for a little while we can be together again.”

Cloud put his hand over hers. “I’ll remember that,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [twitter](http://twitter.com/theoceanblooms) or [tumblr](http://spectroscopes.tumblr.com)! If you really liked this fic, it would be lovely if you could [reblog](https://www.tumblr.com/reblog/619839673340231680/uGOZi1IY) on tumblr.
> 
> Also, please check out [the Cloud/Aerith discord server](https://discord.gg/3PdRDER)!


End file.
